Anonymity has value, in comments and elsewhere

The old joke about being online is that “no one knows you’re a dog.” But the idea of online anonymity has been taking a beating recently, in part because of celebrated cases of fraud such as the Gay Girl in Damascus blog — which turned out to be written by a 40-year-old Scottish man. And the former ombudsman for National Public Radio has also come out swinging against the anonymity of commenters, which she calls “an exercise in faux democracy.” But allowing people to be anonymous isn’t the problem — plus, it has real value for society that shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

What we should all fear is what too many in power want to see: the end of anonymity entirely. Governments, in particular, absolutely loathe the idea that people can speak without being identified… I fear there will soon be widespread laws disallowing anonymous speech, even in America.

Along the same lines, there has been a lot of discussion recently about how online activity of all kinds — including blog comments — would be better if anonymity was outlawed or restricted in some way. Alicia Shepard, the former ombudsman for National Public Radio, wrote a piece recently for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in which she argued that many comment sections are “an exercise in faux democracy” and that there would be “more honest, kinder, civil exchanges if people used their real names.”

In the end, the ability to speak anonymously isn’t just an attribute of what Alicia Shepard calls “faux democracies” — it’s something that has also played a key role in the rise of real democracies in countries like the United States, by allowing people to speak to the powerful without fear of persecution. We shouldn’t toss that kind of principle aside so lightly just because we want to cut down on irritating comments from readers, or stop the occasional blogger from pretending to be someone they are not.